Entrepreneurship | BizSieve.com

Starting a Small Business Using Minimum Investment

Starting a business is always a daunting exercise that needs a lot of strategizing and planning to execute. This exercise becomes more challenging when it comes to starting large enterprises. This is why most business gurus of this world start out small before graduating into acclaimed entrepreneurs. There are numerous advantages associated with starting a small business company.

Small enterprises are beneficial since they are easy to operate especially for business upstarts. For example, they can easily record transactions and monitor the progress of the business. Owners of small businesses are also spared from the hassles associated with management of liabilities and assets. Investments are the other reason that makes small businesses an appealing prospect for many people. These enterprises do not require humongous amounts of money to start.

Starting a small enterprise using low investments

Even though small business can do with minimal investments, some people do not how to make these investments. This is quite worrying because these investments will be influential in the success of the business. Those who know how to invest in small businesses will therefore be able to profit greatly from their enterprises. The following steps could be helpful for those grappling with how to make the perfect investment:

Arrangement of relevant skills

Before thinking of an investment, it is important to list the important skills that might benefit the business. Business upstarts must think about the relevant skills that would be in great demand among the residents in their areas of operation.

Think about the business type

The next step is to consider the type of small enterprise to start. Generally, people can create separate entities from their enterprises or start as sole proprietors. In the latter’s case, such individuals need not undertake any tedious paperwork. In most states, they can use their legal names as their basis for their business operations. The main problem is that they cannot protect their personal assets from the enterprise—this would be a major problem in case of bankruptcy.

Creation of portfolio

After establishing the business, the new entrepreneurs would have to start looking for prospective customers. In this regard, a website or portfolio would be helpful in reaching out to customers. Alternatively, they can make use of testimonials from people who have previously sampled these services or products. Since the business is still on its feet, entrepreneurs can provide part of their services at no fee or slash their prices considerably. This would have the desired effect of attracting customers.

Advertising campaign

This is arguably one of the most difficult tasks that await business people after forming their enterprises. However, it is a necessary exercise for those who want to create publicity for their products or services. Fortunately, there are many advertising strategies that can work wonders for small businesses. By researching the Internet, owners of small businesses can discover these affordable ways of publicizing themselves among their target markets. Such helpful methods include word-of-mouth, mail campaigns and flyers.

Business entrepreneurs must be wise enough to make wise investments in their small business. They should ensure that these minimum investments multiply into high profit margins. Granted, the infancy stage of all businesses is usually rough. However, the fruits of wise investments in small businesses will eventually come to fruition.

About the Author: Tom Clark is a freelance writer, professional blogger, and social media enthusiast. His blog Insurancecompanies.org focuses on insurance. You can follow him on Google+

Should I Work from Home? Pros and Cons

If you’re growing tired of the rat race and yearn to set up your own business, doing something you love and making money from it, you’re far from alone. And in this time of recession, with people still being made redundant left, right and centre, more and more people are choosing to set up shop themselves.

If you’re thinking of doing the same, one question you will probably ask yourself at some point is: should I work from home?

work from home
Image by Jelle Vandebeeck

It’s true that working from home can be enormously beneficial in terms of satisfaction, productivity and time spent with the family, but it is not without its pitfalls. So you need to think long and hard before deciding whether you want to turn a little corner of your house into a home office or workspace and shelling out for office furniture or equipment.

The pros of working from home

No boss

If you’re working from home, you’re either your own boss, or you have permission from your boss to work away from the office. Either way, you don’t have the feeling of someone over your shoulder all the time.

Make your own working hours

Some people are far more productive outside the general office hours of 9-5. If you do your best work early in the morning, or later in the evening, or even in the middle of the night, you have the freedom to set your own hours and work when you’re at your most productive.

Save the environment (and some money!)

If you’re not using you car ever day on that daily commute, you’re helping to cut down on fuel emissions, and reducing your carbon footprint. You’ll also be able to save money, without the cost of petrol or train fares to worry about, or the cost of renting an office.

Spend more time with your family

If you’ve not got a horrendously long commute to worry about every day, it gives you more time to spend with your family. You’ll be able to get the kids ready for school, maybe even walk them to school, and have breakfast as a family in the mornings. And in the evenings, you’ll be there to listen to their stories about their day, and have dinner as a family too.

Work in your pyjamas

If you find you’re much more comfortable in your pyjamas, or tracksuit trousers and a slouchy jumper than you are in tailored work suits, then you’re probably not alone! And if it makes you more productive, there’s no reason why you can’t wear whatever you’re most comfy in when you work from home.

The cons of working from home

Distractions

When you’ve got no boss to worry about and you’re working at your own speed, it’s easy to get distracted. The TV, the cat, making a cup of tea, surfing the Internet…. all of these things can command your attention, making it hard to focus on your projects.

Procrastination

When you make your own hours, it can be very easy to think, “I’ll start in an hour or so”. Then that can quite easily turn into a couple of hours, and before you know it, it’s lunchtime!

Lack of designated work space

Not everyone who works from home is lucky enough to have a home office or workspace. Many people simply don’t have the room. This can make it hard to focus, especially if you have to move, for example if you’re using the family dining table, or if there are other people around during the day.

You can’t get away from it

Unless you are lucky enough to have a designated study, studio or other workspace that you can just shut the door on at the end of the working day, you’ll find it hard to escape your work. And you might also feel that you have to work all hours of the day or night to please clients, particularly if you’re a new business. When you work at home, this is all too easy to do.

Trust signals

Even in today’s age of ecommerce and doing business online, many people still like to see a bricks and mortar shop/office. So not having one of these could be detrimental.

In many cases, working from home can be hugely rewarding, whether you have the option to do so from time to time, or you run your own business. However you do need to be careful to strike the right work-life balance, not let your work impinge on your family life and vice versa, and make sure you maintain a sense of structure. You might need to be strict with yourself in terms of procrastination and the hours you keep too, especially if you’re easily distracted!

Author Bio: If you’re thinking of working from home, it’s a good idea to have a home office, which should be tidy and organised, and allow for maximum productivity. ForMyOffice are a leading supplier of office and home office furniture, as well as lighting and desk accessories for all your office needs.

For the Beginners: Tips for Running a Successful Restaurant

Every restaurant owner dreams of running an exciting, successful restaurant, but many don’t have a clue on how to do this. Where do you start? Do you start with a killer menu, a great bar area, an atmosphere that is the envy of the other restaurants? Well, the answer is yes to all of the above. Below are a few tips in running a successful restaurant:

restaurant business

Location – We’ve all heard the real estate experts say location, location, location when searching for a great home, well this is also true when scouting out a place for your new restaurant. Depending on your budget, you may be able to have a great spot in the middle of a bustling city, but if your budget is a little tighter, you can still have a successful business with a little effort. Check out the towns that are near a big city. Many of them have great atmospheres, and people love being able to walk to the “local joint.”
Bar Area – Having a great bar area where people can mingle is key to any successful restaurant. Think about how many people sit in the bar, order a drink and wait for a dining table to become available. If the bar area is too small, this will force people to stand around and wait for their table as opposed to sitting and enjoying a drink and maybe even an appetizer in the bar. Having enough room in the bar will ensure your revenue to go up because of the extra drinks and appetizers being served.
Live Entertainment – This is a nice touch to any establishment. Customers very likely will come to your restaurant before their reservation to sit in the bar, have a cocktail and listen to music. They may even come back to the bar area after their dinner to enjoy a nice after dinner drink and enjoy the music. Music makes people happy, and happy people spend money!
Friendly Service – People go out to eat to enjoy themselves, whether it is for a celebration, or just a well deserved night out. By having a friendly, knowledgeable group of people working for you will make people feel at ease and relaxed, which in turn will make them want to visit your restaurant again and again. Repeat customers are important to running a successful restaurant.
Food – We all know that having great food will bring customers in the door, but try to find your niche. Do you want to run an expensive, fine dining establishment, or a more casual restaurant? Only you can determine that, but be sure to stay within your limits. Don’t decide to open a fine dining restaurant that doesn’t have the food to back it up. You will need to hire qualified chefs that are familiar with fine dining and all that goes along with it. However, if you decide to go a more casual route, you can have fun with the menu. Try having a “signature” dish or cocktail that is different from your competitors.

Whatever kind of restaurant you decide to open, be sure to make it a nice place where people will want to frequent. Successful restaurants all have a few things in common, great food, great people and great atmosphere. Don’t underestimate the power of the consumer. After all, they are the ones you are trying to please.

About the Author: Jackie White is a professional blogger that writes on a variety of topics including Boston restaurants. She writes for Restaurants.com, a leading directory of restaurant reviews.

New trends to start a small business

Here are a few good businesses to start, based upon the most current business trends:

Green

Any and all green industries are doing very well, and you can blame it on fuel prices. Going green is good for the conscience but now it is also more economically viable. For example, organic food now costs almost the same as mass farmed food, because of the increased prices of fuel making mass farming methods more expensive.
Green energy is fast becoming the cheapest form of energy to use and create. Even recycled paper and managed forest paper is becoming cheaper to create than the paper made from rainforest trees.

Hairdresser

The beauty industry is still doing well, even during a global economic downturn. It is beating the pants off of the fashion industry, which has designers crying into their double lattes. People will always need a hairdresser and a lot of the more expensive ones have gone bust. Just make sure that yours appeals to both men and women and you are set.

Strategic Technology Consulting

The reason why is not clear, but businesses are not taking the time to train their staff in new technology. They are not setting up their own training programs, and are not forking out the cash to have their staff trained off site.

For some reason they are hiring technology consultants. The industry is starting to soar, thanks to many companies ignorance of cloud computing, virtualization, tech scatter, remote workers and low energy server cooling.

Setting up as one of Netsuite partners is beneficial for many reasons, such as gaining industry expertise from one of the leaders in IT consulting and increasing credibility by partnering with a big company.

business trends

IT Functions

Allied to their ignorance or unwillingness to learn about new technology (as mentioned above), many companies are outsourcing their IT functions. This may involve the bigger things such as data centers which do all of a company’s computing. It may also involve smaller functions, such as hiring outside offices to promote a company via social media.

A Directory Site

Finding a specific product or service should be easy, yet thanks to Google, it is getting harder and harder. The websites that produce lists of where you may get one product or service from multiple places are very unreliable.

They are often difficult to search too. The ones that are good are increasingly hard to find, but the market is crying out for them.

Financial Fitness

These companies are doing very well because so many companies are losing money and scared of going bust, so they are throwing money at financial fitness people and financial advisers, in a vain attempt to find an answer. When the economy picks up again then the bottom will fall out of this market, but until that day you should get in whilst the money is good.

Mobile Phones

Every company relating to mobile phones are doing well, except for phone manufacturers and network companies. Therefore, if you know how to make mobile websites, apps, themes, music, tunes, games, covers, protectors or glow in the dark additions, you will make money.

Online Games

There are so many of them that do not make any money, but that is because they are bad. The online games market is a great place to find a long-term income for just one game. If you create an online game that is good, it can easily be marketed for constant trickle of cash every month.

Create the game, add it to some merchant sites, and allow the first few levels to be played free. Then charge $1-3 for the access to play the other 100+ levels. So long as the merchant sites keep running, it allows a constant and seemingly endless trickle of cash all year round.

Everybody a celebrity

Companies that offer to make promotional videos for wannabe celebrities are massive thanks to the many TV shows with prepaid actors and singers pretending to be members of the public so they can win the singing competition. Many people are having demo DVDs and promotional videos made up, to send off to shows like X Factor.

Online accountancy

Many people have lost their jobs and taken up self-employment. Sadly, very few can afford an accountant. Online and cheap accountancy and tax return agents are very popular for the lower budget self-employed business.

About the Author: My name is Sonia Jackson. Welcome to my web-site www.custom-essay-writing.org

Start Your Own Web Design Company And Make Money Straight Away

When you start your own web design business the hardest thing is finding customers. You might be great at design, but perhaps you don’t quite have the right marketing skills to get it off the ground. This could be the difference between surviving or going under. At the very least you need to be bringing in enough money to put food on your table. So what will you do? Will you throw up your fancy website and wait for clients to get in contact?

If you answered yes to that question then you might find yourself down at the employment office faster than you think. The easiest way to find clients is by getting off your seat and hunting them down. Now you might be wondering how you can hunt down clients. You won’t even know where they are. Will you just stop random people in the street and ask them if they’d like a website? I’m sure they’d really like that.

Local businesses

The perfect opportunity lies for you in the local business market. You need to start by making a list of all the local businesses in your local area. Have a plan before you begin. Now you can start picking up the phone and calling around, but the chances you will even get to speak to someone in charge is pretty low.

The only way you can maximize your chances is by going around on foot. Personally going inside each shop and asking to speak to the person in charge. First you must go to the businesses that don’t already have a website. Sell it to them. Once you have made your way around I’d like to think you’ll have closed some sales.

Take an iPad

Unless you’re the best salesperson in the world it could be quite difficult to sell a website to someone if they have no idea what it will look like. They don’t know you and what you’re capable of. They have no reason to trust you with anything. If you take an iPad with you this can completely change the outcome.

Show them your best work. Make it hard for them to say no. If you are letting them see how great their website will be it could be hard for them to resist. Once it’s in their face they might become attached to it. Especially if they were already thinking of having one done. And who isn’t these days?

Make extra money

Let’s imagine you have made the sale. Actually, imagine you have went around everyone on your list and are booked for the next few months. You can’t make any more money. Your profit is based on how many websites you can design and unless you take on more employees it’s hard to scale.

But not if you team up with an SEO company. If you can do this, you can up-sell them services to take their new website to the top of the search engines. Now you can take a commission for finding the SEO company extra work. It’s an easy way to make more money without the hassle of more staff. What do you think?

About the Author: James is a proficient blogger who writes articles on web designing and development. He is recognized as a keynote speaker for delivering excellent speeches, corporate presentations and trainings that are educational, motivational and entertaining.